


Forever

by TururaJ



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, InaSureIna, M/M, a touch of sci-fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:04:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TururaJ/pseuds/TururaJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was waiting for him was hell. There was nothing beautiful in the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Навсегда](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/202795) by TururaJ. 



> Anyone want a bit of AU? No? I still brought it.

Biting back a moan ready to escape from his lips, Slaine threw back his head and arched his back, hitting his head against the unfriendly wall. Maybe if he was in a more sane state he would have felt pain, but now, while his body was being pierced by sharp waves of pleasure, he couldn't concentrate on anything other than his lover. Kaizuka was pushing him into bed like he hadn't fucked for years and years, which Slaine doubted, for even despite Kaizuka’s always indifferent visage, such person as the General of the Space Frontier Fleet, a recognized hero of the Empire, simply could not escape attracting someone else's attention. Besides, the military flight uniform looked perfectly good on the twenty-five year old genius, who had become famous in all the nearby systems during the last Intergalactic War. Kaizuka was obviously keeping himself in good shape.

Any lady would gladly fall into his arms, and many men would not hesitate to climb into his bed, but the fact remained a fact. Every last Saturday of the month Kaizuka was stubbornly visiting him on a tiny God-forsaken planet, situated at the periphery of one of the border systems. In the general intergalactic registry this planet was listed to be a property of Slaine Troyard, although the rights to its possession Slaine received after his father. Despite the inhabitable atmosphere Tharsis was known to be an endless desert of yellow sand, almost devoid of any living creatures.

Many years ago Slaine’s father, entirely absorbed in his research work, purchased it for a laughable amount of money from the local drunkard. Back then Slaine’s mother was still present, and they were a happy family. His father rushed to waste all of his savings to equip Tharsis with a comfortable living facility, where Slaine was residing up to this day. However, his father’s dreams for the successful outcome of the research were not meant to come to fruition. The costs didn’t pay off: the expected valuable metals were treacherously absent in the local soil; the simple microflora would not even interest the students of the zetetic scientific academies; and Tharsis’ very-very remote location would never allow the planet to become a transfer point for space travelers.

Slaine was still a baby when his mother abandoned the family in despair searching to start a new life. Now, over the years, he understood why she had left him - with no money, no education, no job, it was unlikely she would have been able to raise him alone - but back then, feeling her hug for the last time, Slaine desperately didn't understand why he had to say goodbye. He missed her so much, called her back, cried at night, looked for sympathy from his father, but didn’t get anything in response. As if wanting to outplay the fatal destiny, refusing to accept the cruel reality, his father went crazy, getting even more absorbed in his meaningless research.

When Slaine was fourteen his father died - simply fell asleep at his dusty desk amid the piles of crumpled and scattered papers covered with illegible handwriting. By then Slaine, thanks to the merchant wandering in their system and occasionally paying them a visit, had already learned how to deal with an old spacecraft. Burying his father’s cooling body under the layers of the yellow sand, Slaine didn’t linger any more minutes on Tharsis. It wasn’t his dream to become a soldier, but he had no other choice. In order to survive he needed money, yet no one sought to hire a fourteen-year-old boy who only knew how to clean up and wash dishes.

The Vers Flight Academy met him with open arms though, considering the next Intergalactic War had been already brewing for some time. It was right where, in his second year of studying, Slaine had run into Kaizuka Inaho for the first time - kind of literally. They were both so absorbed in looking at the grand escort of the Emperor’s granddaughter, paying the Academy a visit of courtesy, that they didn’t notice each other and safely landed on their butts on the tiled footpath, rubbing their well-deserved bumps on the foreheads. And it was probably the very moment they disliked each other.

Kaizuka never watched what he was saying in those long and overly tricky phrases of his, Kaizuka’s grades always stayed above Slaine’s own, Kaizuka was often visited by his sister during the weekends, and she brought him cookies, which Kaizuka shared with everybody, except Slaine, and Slaine simply couldn’t stand it. However, the childish dislike and stupid rivalry in the matter of grades and flying skills weren’t as terrible as the hatred which broke out, when, after growing up a little, Slaine suddenly realized that they both were in love with the Emperor’s granddaughter.

Asseylum Vers Allusia had unusual emerald green eyes and a lovely soft smile. Often visiting the Academy at the request of her grandfather, the Emperor Rayregalia Vers Rayvers, in order to encourage the future soldiers of the Empire, she had never shunned the company of a desperately embarrassed boy, who was often being mocked by anyone who felt like it. Having spent most of his life locked up on Tharsis, Slaine didn’t know how to behave the way so that society would acknowledge him. And although no one dared to openly make fun of him - the discipline in the Academy was valued above everything else - but rude shoves and angry words said behind his back, were, to say the least, unpleasant, although Slaine quickly learned to swallow the insults. While Asseylum was still within his reach, while he could see her smile and hear her charming voice, he was ready to endure anything.

Yet he definitely wasn't ready to see her in Kaizuka’s company at the seafront, which opened a magnificent view of the endless blue sky. Asseylum was dancing under the bright rays of sun, under the clamorous gulls soaring in the sky, and the skirt of her white dress fluttered under Kaizuka’s watchful scarlet eyes. That day for the first time Slaine saw as the smile touched his rival’s indifferent face - and though it was only its timid shadow, Slaine already knew - this was a battle he would never win. Because Asseylum Vers Allusia had never looked at him the way she was looking at Kaizuka - admiringly, warmly, kindly, as if only close to him, only him, her soul was able to be free.

The hatred crawling through his veins felt bitter and intoxicating. Together with Kaizuka they exhausted each other by dueling, be it hand-to-hand combat or flight maneuvering. They weren’t ashamed to bruise each other and leave scratches - or rather, Slaine didn’t feel any shame, and Kaizuka always retaliated. A punch for a punch, a scratch for a scratch, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. They constantly walked on the edge, one step from the verge of falling - more than simple rivals, more than just enemies. Like beasts, which haven't yet reached the prime of their lives, but already feeling their own might. Beasts that were relentlessly led forward by the ravenous instinct, and the only thing that stopped them from the inevitable violence was the principle of humanity, hammered into them over the years of living and studying.

Slaine, though always holding back, biting his lips, smashing his fists until there would be blood because of the frustration burning inside, was too naive to think that he knew all about humanity. Then came the war. The war set all the records straight.

There were hundreds of them. Hundreds of boys only from the Vers Academy. Thousands - from the planet that housed the Academy. Hundreds of thousands from the system of Vers. Millions of boys from the neighboring systems. One boundless, immense intergalactic army. One large, coordinated, breathing mechanism. Captains, majors, lieutenants, admirals - a whole string of dashing officers, deceitfully assuring them of the success of the dubious campaign.

Shivers were running down Slaine’s skin during the first parade, when the hymns were solemnly played around, and so many people came to see them off with enthusiastic shouts. Shivers were running down his back, when he sat behind the controls of a battle spaceship for the first time and when he went into his first minor battle. War mocked them, still hiding far away at the borders, somewhere in the other systems, while officers were trying to coach the rookies by the abbreviated training course.

Predictably, he and Kaizuka became the best of the best. In the hassle of the flashing days, under the bubbling stress of a soon redeployment to the front lines, even the past offenders have yielded the rights to lead and instruct to Slaine. Hatred stayed lurking deep inside, lost in the turmoil of more important things, in the pressing responsibility for his unit, in his restless thoughts and dreams. The scent of trouble was disturbing, but Slaine was still too naive back then, too much in love to back away. He was going to defend the Empire, he was going to fight until his last breath in the name of his love.

What was waiting for him was hell. The wreckage of the burning cruisers, the space fields of destroyed starships and stars, the overcrowded bunks with cripples howling in pain, the hundreds of thousands of lives lost forever. There was nothing beautiful in the war. Here it was hot and crowded and terribly stuffy, every single ounce of the energy of the power sources was being saved for the chance of an extra round of firing. Slaine often heard whispers about how officers were giving commands to turn off the oxygen just to be able to carry out the orders and open the last fire against the enemy. At transshipment bases Slaine frequently noticed how the lifeless bodies were being carried away from the crowded cruisers, which docked to the stations only thanks to the tricky computer automatics.

The smell of death was following him closely. Hatred no longer raged in his chest, he simply didn't have time for it. They fought together with Kaizuka, shoulder to shoulder, and they survived, trying to protect their people. They had no room for error. Every death was poisoning their souls with a bitter “And what if I...?” But, no, sometimes it was too late. In those rare times they were blessed with the chances to relax, Slaine couldn’t sleep. He walked as pale shadow around the station, the cruiser or the base - wherever the will of the military elite would direct them at the time - and the number of moments he encountered Kaizuka, the number of moments he saw in Kaizuka’s half-closed eyes the inevitable _understanding_ just kept steadily increasing. But he felt so sick from that he wanted to knock himself up against the nearest wall.

He became the perfect soldier, the perfect pilot, the perfect _murderer_ , and he couldn’t escape from this realization - there was no place to hide. He tried, desperately tried, sometimes until his voice became hoarse, to repeat to himself, that what he did - he did for the sake of Asseylum, for her safety, for her future. But did she, locked away under the watchful eyes of her powerful grandfather on a beautiful, flowery planet, even suspect what kind of hell was really going on at the outskirts of the Empire? Was there at least _someone_ who knew the whole truth?

Slaine was young, but he wasn’t a fool. He quickly learned the answer to the unvoiced question about who had started the war. He knew that from the millions of boys only a handful would come back home. They were just the cannon fodder, the shield that paved the way to the more serious space artillery. And what was the reason they’ve been losing their lives, what was the reason they became crippled, what was it they’ve been accepting the new scars on their bodies for? The answer was terribly simple - for the ambitions of a handful of greedy people.

Kaizuka was holding better. Looking at his face, shadowed by fatigue, but still continuing to calmly giving away commands, Slaine realized what the main difference between them was. Kaizuka had someone to come back to. Somewhere faraway Kaizuka’s sister was waiting for him, and maybe Asseylum Vers Allusia too. Too often Slaine smiled bitterly and closed his eyes, pulling the neck of his uniform jacket over his trembling lips. It's just that sometimes someone is luckier in life, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt tired. Tired of seeing death, tired of making beautiful speeches in honor of the fallen comrades. “Their heroic acts will always remain in our memory”, he was always reassuring his unit, not even ashamed to lie. Who were these people? How many names did he voice? Was there anyone among them from the Vers Academy? What were their names? What heroic actions, for fuck’s sake? Slaine was forgetting everything the next morning. A stream of faces was changing too often, no matter how much he tried to return his soldiers from battle alive. And so one day he made a mistake. Gave in to his emotions to save a bunch of useless, still inexperienced boys.

“You won't come back, Troyard, rethink your actions”, Kaizuka warned him via the video link, but Slaine just smiled and for the first time in his life openly looked at him, not bothering to mask his face with a mask of indifference, or a grimace of hatred, or a faint smile of bitterness.

“Take care of her,” he said hoarsely and pulled the controls. Even if Kaizuka tried to tell him something else, he didn’t listen, having turned the connection off.

Slaine couldn’t even imagine that he would be able to survive in that fight. And that he would regret surviving - even more so. The chance of him being taken as a prisoner was something he never thought could happen, but he did wake up locked in a dirty cell shackled with heavy chains. It was the fourth year of the war.

The pain became his daily friend. Sometimes in the evenings it seemed like there weren’t any living parts of his body left. The whip was probably the most harmless instrument of torture his guards preferred. The days merged into a bleary, vague, monotonous stream. He was given water, tortured, then left alone in his cell to listen to how other unlucky people were being abused in the surrounding cages. Sometimes the cries would die down, sometimes the lifeless bodies were dragged past the bars of his cell, and he would feel real fear. No, he wasn’t afraid of death per se, but he was afraid to die alone. No one would take care of his body. No one would say the farewell words. No one would remember him in three minutes after his death, because three minutes is pretty much enough to get rid of his still warm corpse. 

Slaine was breaking inside - for a long, very long time, because he didn't want to see the triumphant expressions on the ugly faces of people who he couldn't even truly hate. They weren’t the ones who started this war. They too had the right to crave for his blood, for his pain, for his torment. He had to accept that in the end it was his own choice not to stay and die of hunger on his father's damned legacy, but to enter the Academy. So he endured, whimpering from pain, biting through his lips, clinging with his fingers to the coldness of the chains bounding him, swallowing the tears he couldn’t hold back. And it wasn’t the pain that was so hard to bear, but the lack of knowledge of when it all would finally end.

He had been a prisoner for a whole year. By the time the Union forces had seized the planet, where he and other captives were being kept, Slaine was barely aware of himself. But he still remembered the moment when the new unfamiliar steps abruptly ended right in front of the door to his cell. Whether it was a joke of fate, Slaine didn’t know, but he had appreciated the irony to the fullest. Kaizuka Inaho, clearly not expecting to see his pathetic human wreckage, was silently standing behind the bars. Slaine laughed - hoarsely, scary - then coughed, spitting out blood, and, gathering the last shreds of his pride, tried to move.

It was futile. His face only touched the floor which stank of his own shit.

“Come on, Kaizuka, laugh”, he whispered, scraping his nails against the uncaring stone beneath him in frustration. It’s just that someone always gets everything, and someone always gets nothing. It was normal. _Normal_. It was always like this.

He was so cold that when the other’s warm fingers burned his shaking shoulders, he couldn’t hold back the painful groan. His nose suddenly met the brand new General straps on Kaizuka’s uniform. Kaizuka was kneeling down next to his exhausted body, Kaizuka was holding him, despite the dirt and the stench and the blood, Kaizuka was stroking his hair - what was left of it - and for some absurd reason Kaizuka was also pressing his forehead into Slaine’s shoulder. Slaine felt too dead inside to resist.

“I want to go home, Kaizuka,” he said and allowed the tears to burn his eye-lids. “I want to go home so much, but isn’t it funny? I don’t have a home.”

Consciousness was returning and escaping him again. From time to time, until the sedative started to act, Slaine absently studied the low ceilings. His body, crammed with medication, felt too weak to try to move, so he didn’t. Ceilings were always changing. He guessed he was being transported somewhere, but the intervals between his wakefulness and sleep were too short, and he failed to catch even the medics.

Finally he came to himself already back on Tharsis, thinking he was being delusional. He was covered in bandages, his father's old bedroom was tidy, and a warm blanket was carefully laid over his body. Kaizuka, dressed in the ordinary civilian clothes and holding a glass of water, appeared from the living room, moved a chair to his bed and lowered himself on it, meeting his gaze.

“Welcome home,” he said, handed him the glass and patiently held it the whole time Slaine was hysterically laughing, and then choking with sobs.

Kaizuka didn’t leave. Neither a day, nor two, nor a week later, and Slaine simply couldn't resist the curiosity and asked a reasonable question, why the hell one of the newly-appointed generals of the Empire’s Space Frontier Fleet was staying in the middle of nowhere whilst the war was raging. In truth, he shouldn’t have been so surprised to the information he got in response. The war was nearing its end, the forces on both sides were too battered to continue the hellish bloodshed. The goal didn’t justify the means anymore. Slaine missed everything while being held in captivity. And Kaizuka just took a couple of months off as he was free to do so now.

Kaizuka... was unbearable. Checked his diet, reminded him to shower, bandaged his wounds with absolutely no aversion to touching the healing ugly scars littering his body, brought him breakfasts to bed and allowed him to use his shoulder when Slaine would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night from the exhausting nightmares. Sand storms often flew over the quiet facility. In the darkness of his bedroom Slaine tossed and turned, listening to how the sand was scratching the roof, and was too terrified of the prospect of hearing the shuffling footsteps of the warden. One day in the middle of the night he couldn’t take it anymore. Perhaps it had been a weakness even by his standards, but he couldn’t stay alone any longer.

Kaizuka was dozing on the sofa in the living room, the lamp was left powered up on the table. Warm light flooded the windowless room, shadows lurked in the corners, Slaine shivered and quietly lay down next to Inaho, however, immediately feeling as Kaizuka’s palm lowered on his shoulder and pulled him closer. He curled up, knees touching Kaizuka’s knees, and could no longer deny the fact that lying next to Inaho was very calming and warm.

“Why aren't you with her?” he didn't understand. Really didn’t. The rank of General was opening any paths for Kaizuka, including the opportunity to claim the hand and heart of the Emperor’s granddaughter. Mere mortals could only dream about such things.

Kaizuka slid his hand down his back, for a second his fingers reached under the edge of Slaine’s shirt and gently touched the bandages.

“Once your name was officially added to the list of the missing in action, I came to see her. I thought you'd have wanted her to know about your death. But she just...” the pause in Kaizuka’s voice clearly indicated how much these memories were unpleasant to him. “...Told me exactly the same words which you used to say to your people when someone didn’t return from the battlefield.”

“What did you expect, Kaizuka?” Tears burned Slaine’s eyelids, the angry bitterness tried to numb the pain, but Inaho’s hand stroking his back kept him from diving into the abyss of self-pity. “A memorial service for me?”

“I am not sure what I was expecting. But I haven't seen her since.”

“You idiot," Slaine hissed sinking his fingers in the collar of Kaizuka’s stupid orange sweater. However, rather than shaking the fool with all his strength, Slaine soon realized he was pressing his nose into the idiot’s cheek. Their lips were mere millimeters from each other, but none of them made a final move back then. It seemed like once again they hovered on the edge, only this edge was something completely different and unknown, and to cross it meant to let go of a precious part of yourself, but Slaine was too afraid to look for a new hope in the meaninglessness of flowing days.

Soon Kaizuka went back to his duties, but promised to check on him every month. Slaine remained on Tharsis alone. The Empire was giving cash benefits to all the soldiers and victims who survived the war, so Slaine could easily survive until old age if he wouldn’t suddenly acquire a strange urge to waste all of his money. There was nothing to celebrate in any case and there was nothing to be happy about. He paid to the merchant for bringing him water and food, and that was that.

During the days he cleaned the living part of the facility, spent a lot of time over his father's tedious work just to pass the time, methodically moved away the stubborn sand that liked to flock at the main entrance. The evenings passed by sitting at his father’s grave and shifting the little nice stones found nearby over it. He patiently learned how to cook and every time caught himself on waiting for the noise of the powerful engines of Kaizuka’s spaceship to roar at the landing area located closely to the facility.

Kaizuka was coming, staying overnight and then disappearing again. He always brought the funny looking cookies, telling Slaine about how his sister completely didn’t know how to handle the cooking utensils. He made Slaine play chess and lose every goddamn time. He filled the living room with dozens of purchased books which Slaine succumbed to reading when the sadness inside seemed unbearable and he wanted to hide from the world and from the stinging awareness of how lonely he was. 

He desperately - until his closed tight eyes hurt, until his clenched teeth gnashed, until his nails painfully dug under his own skin - didn't want to admit to himself that he lived and breathed only because of Kaizuka Inaho’s visits. That it was all what was left of his life. That he was still unneeded, kithless, worthless, stupid boy with lots of scars on his body and in his soul. No, he didn't want to break - neither the remains of his pride, nor the fragments of faith in his own strength, nor the pieces of warm memories of the only light of love in his life - love that had been dying in the agony of nonreciprocity since its birth.

But when Kaizuka Inaho hadn’t arrived at the appointed date, hadn’t arrived neither a week, nor a month, nor three months later, Slaine, standing in the middle of the living room and blankly looking at the blurred dates of the crumpled calendar, realized that the treacherous tears were once again rolling down his cheeks. Nothing mattered anymore. Neither his pride, nor his past, nor his doubts and fears. Nothing.

He immediately regretted that he hadn’t installed as Kaizuka had advised the communication service. That he hadn’t bothered to buy a cheap used spaceship so he would have been able to reach the neighboring planets. That he absolutely didn't know in what corner of the galaxy Kaizuka’s service took place, and where his sister resided.

Every morning he went out to the landing area and crouched there for hours waiting for the miracle he didn’t believe in. Yellow sand scurried between the heavy soles of his boots, climbed behind his neck, whipped him across his face, but Slaine could only stare at the empty sky, shining with the pale lights of the system’s distant stars, and time after time repeat and whisper, like a mantra:

_Kaizuka, come back._

_Come back._

_Please, come back._

But the sky remained silent. For six months. For a year. Slaine’s face became gaunt, he lost so much weight that at times he was scared of his own reflection in the mirrors, but then he wearily laid his head on his pillow and closed his eyes, allowing the hordes of nightmares to replace the darkness of the bedroom. Because the nightmares were so, so much better than the endless silence that enveloped Tharsis. In those nightmares he lived, lived despite the pain and the fear and the disgusting images. Lived - not _existed_ , for some reason stubbornly continuing to gulp down the tasteless bits of food.

Kaizuka Inaho returned a year and a half later in the midst of a most ordinary night. When Slaine got outside, the gravitational batteries and the powerful engine of the smoothly landed starship had already subsided. A single lantern tower illuminated the space with cold light, but it was enough to make out a black eye-patch concealing Kaizuka’s left eye socket and the fresh scar running down from it. It wasn’t hard to notice how badly Kaizuka was limping as he walked towards him.

Slaine didn't care. He didn’t care about the empty eye socket, the ugly scar, the limping - he kissed Kaizuka right there, amidst the howling wind and sand, slid his fingers in the disheveled hair, holding Kaizuka so tight that his own bones cracked. Kaizuka kept silent when Slaine moved them to his bedroom, he kept silent as Slaine got rid of their clothes, kept silent as Slaine clung to him trying to reach _everywhere_ at once. Kaizuka was obediently staying silent and responding to his kisses.

That night Slaine was the one who took and he wasn’t going to share even with Inaho. Interlacing their fingers, frantically and clumsily he pushed in between the other’s buttocks, his heavy and ragged breathing caressing Kaizuka’s shoulder blades - and then he could not remember whether it were mere moans spilling from his lips, or he was really choking with the rushing out tears. Yet Kaizuka was only compliantly exposing his hips, pressing his forehead against the crumpled sheets.

_Mine._

Slaine opened his eyes with this thought, and it felt like his heart fell down into a bottomless pit. Inaho was here, here with him, and for the first time in his life Slaine watched as Kaizuka’s lips formed a smile. A real smile, not its timid and ghostly shadow. The world around was suddenly full of colors, Slaine touched the collarbone peeping out from under the covers with his lips, ran his hand against the other’s thigh, wrapped up in bandages, and stilled, every cell of his body absorbing the finally found happiness.

“Stay,” his voice was hoarse and demanding, but he could not - _would not_ \- tolerate those cursed days reeking of the hateful loneliness, not again.

Kaizuka turned to his side, let his hand slide into Slaine’s bright hair and gently patted him on the head, despite the seriousness of his facial expression.

“Give me two years," he said, "I will finish all I planned to do. And then I will stay.”

They didn’t leave the bed for a few days, getting to know each other, enjoying each other on equal terms. And it was so right and felt so good to trace his fingers along Kaizuka’s protruding ribs, and to feel the reciprocal touch against the mesh of his paled scars. And it was so wonderful to allow Inaho to settle between his thighs and to surrender to the rhythm of his cautious movements - movements so cautious that Slaine suddenly remembered that they both were still not that old, just two idiot boys, for the first time experiencing the delights of the forbidden fruit. That both of them were slightly over twenty.

Inaho went back only two weeks later, but he had been keeping his promise since then and always visited him at the end of each month, on Saturdays. And every time, every time - just like now - pushed him into the sheets, made him rave with kisses, left bright marks on his bare neck and wouldn’t let go of him until morning. Sometimes Slaine hissed and resisted - particularly during those moments he longed to lead but Kaizuka refused him, because he wanted the same. Kaizuka always had to apologize afterwards, bringing Slaine breakfast in bed, finding him in the maze of the facility’s rooms just to kiss him behind the ear, cooking his signature scrambled eggs, the sheer smell of which made Slaine’s stomach growl contentedly.

“Are you dozing off while I'm inside you?” the smooth voice, slightly touched by the heavy breathing, pulled Slaine out of the swarm of memories. Kaizuka moved his hips - obviously in revenge - touching inside him that intimate spot that made Slaine’s body arch and tremble from the piercing pleasure, and the back of his head hopelessly banged against the wall behind him once again. Slaine groaned, taking in the much needed air, but instead of snapping or trying to swap their places, which he loved to do sometimes, he got his hands behind Inaho’s back, raised himself up and nuzzled against Kaizuka’s cheek.

“How much more do I have to wait?” Slaine never voiced this question. Slaine rarely looked at the calendar. Slaine stubbornly didn’t count the months. Slaine didn't ask Kaizuka if he had other lovers. Slaine was afraid to believe. He pretended waiting for nothing. But in there, _inside of him_ , his heart was anxiously counting the beats every day, recklessly desiring to know the answer.

Inaho slipped out of him, lay down next to him, intertwining their arms and legs into one single unity, and Slaine wasn’t even surprised that their mutual desire quickly went away, replaced by the plain human warmth. The wounds were still too fresh, the memories loomed in the dreams, the fears have not yet receded, hiding somewhere in a secluded place on the edge of the consciousness.

“Next time,” Inaho answered placing his hand over Slaine’s heart and wearily leaning his head back on the pillow. The empty eye socket, right now not hidden by the eye-patch, stood out like a gaping hole, but Slaine merely felt the desire to touch it with his lips - in the end, they both never shied away from touching each other’s scars. “Next time I will stay. Forever.”

By the morning the sandstorm that had been raging all night had subsided. Distant planets and stars were shining mysteriously in the sky as if pushing aside the lazy, cold light of the white dwarf stars. While Slaine accompanied Kaizuka to his spaceship, the soles of his high boots were quickly assaulted by the damn sand. He tapped his boots against the edge of the ship’s tail, shaking it out, and that was why, apparently, he deserved the wad of crushed paper thrown to the back of his head.

Kaizuka smiled at him with the corners of his lips and was gone. Slaine snorted looking at the noisy spaceship flying away and slowly directed himself back to the station, deciding to get some more sleep. He unfolded the crumpled piece of the glossy paper more out of sheer boredom rather than curiosity. 

_“We are really excited to announce that due to the planned expansion of the trading hyper-gates’ routes in the borderline system of Edel, 'Saazbaum Inc.' is currently on the active lookout for the planets with habitable atmosphere for the purpose of organizing transshipment docks and other infrastructures required for the comfortable transferring of trading escorts. We are ready to offer a good price for the opportunity to lease a part of your land and airspace. If you are interested in our offer, please contact...”_

Slaine didn’t read further, stopped halfway and felt how the dry wind was ruffling the strands of his hair which were tickling his neck. He stretched himself, tucked the paper into the pocket of his comfortable pants and, smiling, sent an obscene gesture in the direction Kaizuka disappeared. Lovingly. That damn brilliant strategist had already been thinking about their future together, but never voiced a word about it. Slaine made a promise to torture Kaizuka immediately as the idiot would be back. Maybe right inside the spaceship. Inaho’s ass was definitely doomed.

Slaine lingered at the entrance only for a second, looking around the endless space of yellow sand, and for the first time remembered his father without the scathing and bitter aftertaste.

He was sure - this month would fly very-very fast.


End file.
